Topic: What are you currently reading?

[Haffner]

Thanks, I keep that in mind. I am relatively new to Nietzsche, having only read Beyond Good and Evil before this.

Looks like you're on the right track! I started reading Nietzsche when I was 13, and it took me several readings to start really "getting" his work. Once it clicked, however, his philosophy Affirmed and even changed my life (for better) several times.

[Kullervo]

Looks like you're on the right track! I started reading Nietzsche when I was 13, and it took me several readings to start really "getting" his work. Once it clicked, however, his philosophy Affirmed and even changed my life (for better) several times.

If I had discovered him at 13, I don't think I would have understood it at all. You must have been a serious 13-year old.

[Haffner]

If I had discovered him at 13, I don't think I would have understood it at all. You must have been a serious 13-year old.

My father was a child beating "agnostic" (a term I find extremely dubious), and at that time I didn't understand religion, so Nietzsche helped fill in the cracks.

[Florestan]

Please re-read, Nietzsche's portrayal of Jesus Christ in Der Antichristlich. It's one of the most beautiful portrayals in the history of literature, and had alot to do with my finally embracing the Catholic faith I was baptised into.

As you probably know, Florestan, the real title of what is called "The Antichrist" is the "Anti-Christian". Nietzsche mostly knew about the Lutheran religion he grew up with (his father was a minister), and that is the sect of Christianity he attacks most in Der Antichristlich.

You came back to Catholicism after reading The Antichrist! Poor Friedrich would roll in his grave if he knew that...

Without any intention to be polemic and with all due respect, to me there is no way one can reconcile Nietzsche and Jesus. It's one of the most striking cases of either / or.

[karlhenning]

Without any intention to be polemic and with all due respect, to me there is no way one can reconcile Nietzsche and Jesus. It's one of the most striking cases of either / or.

You have a point, Andrei, to which I am sure Andy can speak better.  My own humble outsider's impression is that making that an either / or matter of it, accords Nietzsche a gravity far beyond his station.  I suppose Andy must understand Nietzsche as illumined by Jesus, and not at all the reverse 

[George]

Please re-read, Nietzsche's portrayal of Jesus Christ in Der Antichristlich. It's one of the most beautiful portrayals in the history of literature, and had alot to do with my finally embracing the Catholic faith I was baptised into.

As you probably know, Florestan, the real title of what is called "The Antichrist" is the "Anti-Christian". Nietzsche mostly knew about the Lutheran religion he grew up with (his father was a minister), and that is the sect of Christianity he attacks most in Der Antichristlich.

I am glad you cleared up my confusion in the second paragraph. 

[Haffner]

You came back to Catholicism after reading The Antichrist! Poor Friedrich would roll in his grave if he knew that...

Without any intention to be polemic and with all due respect, to me there is no way one can reconcile Nietzsche and Jesus. It's one of the most striking cases of either / or.

Florestan, if anyone is most assuredly qualified to have the right to be polemic, it's you. To my knowledge, you are one of the overall best informed posters here.

Everybody's different, everyone finds there own way to Love (God).

Nietzsche, in TSZ said it himself: this is my way, what is yours?

[karlhenning]

Florestan, if anyone is most assuredly qualified to have the right to be polemic, it's you. To my knowledge, you are one of the overall best informed posters here.

To the best of my information, I confirm this 

[karlhenning]

Back now to Tales from the Alhambra; that story about the nesting pigeons always tugs at my heartstrings.

[Haffner]

You have a point, Andrei, to which I am sure Andy can speak better.  My own humble outsider's impression is that making that an either / or matter of it, accords Nietzsche a gravity far beyond his station.  I suppose Andy must understand Nietzsche as illumined by Jesus, and not at all the reverse 

This was admirably put, Karl. I consider Nietzsche the greatest philosopher in Western history, but I have also kept in mind his biography: a man whom lived with a huge amount of bitterness, loneliness, and poorest health. As much as he gave the world, it really is exigent to keep in mind his personal history when reading his more odd assertions (example: his mostly unfair treatment of women).

Again, I must put out how beautiful his portrayal of Jesus is in the abovementioned book; only a man whom truly loved and admired Jesus (though under suspicious auspices) could have written such.

[EmpNapoleon]

For someone who called himself an immoralist and antichrist, I sure go to him a lot for moral guidelines (leaving his own "creepiness," as someone referred to Wagner, aside)."  His "good" and "bad" means "noble" and "unclean."

...to me there is no way one can reconcile Nietzsche and Jesus. It's one of the most striking cases of either / or.

It's not Nietzsche, but Dionysus against the Crucified.  However, Nietzsche did think of himself and Dionysus, and even the Crucified when he went mad.

[Haffner]

Without any intention to be polemic and with all due respect, to me there is no way one can reconcile Nietzsche and Jesus. It's one of the most striking cases of either / or.

Re-reading this, at the risk of being presumptuous...Florestan you are WAY more open-minded than that. Forgive if any offense taken, none meant in the least.

[orbital]

I've had a couple of quick reads recently. One book written by a cousin of mine (my grandmother's nephew actually), a biographical fiction based on his mother's leaving Paris and going to Istanbul to start a new life. The book is predominantly about his mother but it mentions my grandmother quite a lot too. In that sense it was fun to read, but knowing his mother closely you just know when he is making things up to make the story more interesting, and that was kind of offputting. This book became a national bestseller somehow. I thought the writing was not good at all though.

The other was a collection of letters between a prominent intellectual Turkish author and his son living in the US. The author died about 10 years ago, and he always had my full admiration not solely for the books he wrote but also for the foundation for orphans to which he found and dedicated his life to.

[MishaK]

Just finished Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. Now starting The Singing Neanderthals - The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steven Mithen.

[Florestan]

Florestan, if anyone is most assuredly qualified to have the right to be polemic, it's you. To my knowledge, you are one of the overall best informed posters here.

To the best of my information, I confirm this 

Thank you very much, gentlemen, you are most kind. I have the same consideration towards you both.

Re-reading this, at the risk of being presumptuous...Florestan you are WAY more open-minded than that. Forgive if any offense taken, none meant in the least.

No offense taken, Andy, rest assured. Actually, I admire you for loving both Christ and Nietzsche in the same time. But what do you make of these:

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity

[...]the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick brute-man—the Christian

And Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage, of freedom, of intellectual libertinage; Christian is all hatred of the senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general....

[...]one had better put on gloves before reading the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it very advisable

Christianity also stands in opposition to all intellectual well-being,

I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,—I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race....

Actually, I coud have quoted the whole book, Christ's portrait included. Granted, one can admire his prose, his irony, his passion and his honesty --- but then again: if words have meaning and he was sincere, it's either Nietzsche or Christ. Now, one can argue that this terrible condemnation of Christianity stemmed from some sort of loathing what one secretly admires and that the cause of his insanity was precisely this split in his personality. Be it as it may, one thing remains: in his works he was one of the most acerbic and bitter critics of the Christian religion and morality. And again, be it said with no offense whatsoever meant: how someone can be both a Christian and a Nietzschean is incomprehensible to me.

[drogulus]

      I'm reading The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory The Fall of a Science and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin. It's very good.

      I haven't read Nietzsche other than excerpts and discussions of his thought in various books. He appears to have been a kind of psychologist and social critic, but not a philosopher in the technical sense. His hostility to Christianity stems from its historical effects as well as his personal emotive reaction, not the meaning of the propositions it contains. If you want a philosophical appreciation, you could start with Russell, a real philosopher.

     In addition to his hostilty to what he disliked, there was also his misunderstanding of evolution and its lessons. He seemed to have felt that if Christianity endorsed empathy, then nature must be against it. All in all, he wasn't much of a thinker, and something of a hysteric. His great influence on social thought, as well as on Freud and the future of psychology, is what he will be remembered for. He has no substantial position in philosophy, except among some postmodernists, not a ringing endorsement for the serious-minded. He is, however, popular with teenagers because he is against the same things they are against: authority, oppressive rules, hypocrisy and other easy targets. Richard Rorty admired him, too. 

[EmpNapoleon]

I haven't read Nietzsche

Read him.

[drogulus]

Read him.

     Why? So I can subject myself to argument by abuse? I can get that here.

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity

[...]the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick brute-man—the Christian

And Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage, of freedom, of intellectual libertinage; Christian is all hatred of the senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general....

[...]one had better put on gloves before reading the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it very advisable

     Anyone who thinks this is philosophical argument is seriously confused about philosophy and what constitutes rational discourse.

     If you want a heroic rebel as a writer hero, there's Camus. He wasn't a philosopher either, but he was a fine writer and touched on philosophical themes about freedom and responsibility.

     

[Haffner]

Actually, I coud have quoted the whole book, Christ's portrait included. Granted, one can admire his prose, his irony, his passion and his honesty --- but then again: if words have meaning and he was sincere, it's either Nietzsche or Christ. Now, one can argue that this terrible condemnation of Christianity stemmed from some sort of loathing what one secretly admires and that the cause of his insanity was precisely this split in his personality. Be it as it may, one thing remains: in his works he was one of the most acerbic and bitter critics of the Christian religion and morality. And again, be it said with no offense whatsoever meant: how someone can be both a Christian and a Nietzschean is incomprehensible to me.

Please, feel free to quote from Christ's portrait, though it doesn't quite hold up with your last sentence...far from it. It's hard to come away reading that portrayal without knowing Nietzsche's deeply felt admiration for Jesus...I daresay he slips up in a way that Freud would have love to analyze. I recently reread that portrayal, and it seems to me that on the whole (in regard to Nietzsche's vehement condemnation of Christianity) that "the lady doth protest too much".   

As to your quotes, you are quoting a man whom was terribly sickly and half blind through his whole life. The best biographical sources say that he probably only had sex once, and that ended up driving him crazy, completely blind, and ultimately killing him. Of course a person like that would have to give a huge amount of lip service to a "Superman"...wouldn't he?

I don't consider myself a Nietzschean. That was something I was for most of my life, and I ended up bitter and lonely. Just like him.

 I still profoundly admire his work, and am indebted to him, as well as Edmund Husserl and Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, for providing me with a terrific amount of inspiration, as well as getting me through so many hard times in my life. But I could say that, and more, about Music. But I don't "worship" music, or Hegel, Husserl, or Nietzsche. I worship God (Jesus) and venerate his mother and the saints.

That someone could deeply admire Nietzsche and still be a Roman Catholic (I don't use the word "Christian", as that word has a different connotation in America) absolutely should not be incomprehensible to you. There are far, far greater contradictions throughout the history of man.

And I'm betting you know that.

[Haffner]

      If you want a philosophical appreciation, you could start with Russell, a real philosopher.

     In addition to his hostilty to what he disliked, there was also his misunderstanding of evolution and its lessons. He seemed to have felt that if Christianity endorsed empathy, then nature must be against it. All in all, he wasn't much of a thinker, and something of a hysteric. His great influence on social thought, as well as on Freud and the future of psychology, is what he will be remembered for. He has no substantial position in philosophy, except among some postmodernists, not a ringing endorsement for the serious-minded. He is, however, popular with teenagers because he is against the same things they are against: authority, oppressive rules, hypocrisy and other easy targets. Richard Rorty admired him, too. 

Interesting and well written post! However, I seriously doubt that most would favorably compare the impact of Nietzsche with that of Russell. I see that you are interested in Physics, etc. and I respect your interests. I personally found Wittgenstein's only slightly less dry ruminations to be far more convincing than Russell.

Or maybe I'm just biased against the arid, void-of-colour, anti-Romantic choke-spew writing style and summations of Russell. 

Just my opinion, and I mean no offense whatsoever.